Two Americans were reportedly captured fighting for the self-described Islamic State in Syria last week, the U.S-backed Syrian Democratic Forces reported. Warren Christopher Clark, 34, and Zaid Abed al-Hamid, 35, were among five men recently captured fighting for ISIS in Syria, according to the U.S-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. Warren Christopher Clark, also known as Abu Muhammad, is originally from Houston. Clark has been on the radar before. Seamus Hughes, deputy director on the Program of Extremism at George Washington University, has been tracking Clark for a couple of years. is Clark said to have sent a résumé and cover letter seeking a job with the Islamic State has been seized on a battlefield in Syria.

A University of Houston graduate, Mr. Clark moved to Saudi Arabia to teach English and then taught English for three months in Turkey, according to documents recovered in a house in Mosul, Iraq. Mr. Clark’s résumé ends in June 2015, indicating that he probably joined the Islamic State after that.

Syrian Democratic Forces, said he had been seized along with a man they described as another American, Zaid Abed al-Hamid. The militia said it had also detained other foreign fighters, including citizens of Ireland and Pakistan.

CHALLENGE

Why do young men and women from America and from other western countries join ISIS? American law enforcement officials estimate that roughly 250 Americans have tried to join IS. Most of them never left the United States, raising fears of more homegrown attacks like the one in December in San Bernardino, California. Assistant Attorney General John Carlin, the Justice Department’s top national security officer, told NBC News that his agency has open investigations in all 50 states. Notably if Mr. Clark and Mr. Hamid, whose surname was also spelled al-Hamed, are extradited to the United States, they would be only the 15th and 16th American adults to return from joining ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

One big challenge is that these 15-16 Americans fit no particular pattern. Some are from poor Muslim immigrant families. Others had what can be described as privileged backgrounds. Three have Somali backgrounds. One was a Latino convert to Islam. They lived in small towns and cities in New York, Texas, California and places in between. There’s no one-size-fits-all explanation for why Westerners join foreign terrorist organization, nor is there one common profile for an American jihadist.

WHY ICOGNATIVE?

Peter Bergen, was the first journalist to interview Osama bin Laden on television and has written five books on terrorism, explored what attracts Americans to radical Islam in his new book, “The United States of Jihad” , says “Each case is a little bit different, and in the same way, if you looked at anybody who murdered somebody, I think you’d find that each case, the more you know about it, the more particular it becomes, and in some ways the more inexplicable it becomes…. Evil acts are usually pointless and inexplicable,” Bergan says.

Technological answers today are deficient in disruptive character; thus, they fall short to deal with the magnitude and potential severity of the threat. Breaking the cycle of innovation and countermeasures between terrorism and counterterrorism calls for unprecedented innovation with which terrorists cannot compete. In a situation where the central problem is related to preemptive identification of a potential terrorist, a technology that can come to the rescue of counter-terrorism and homeland security agencies is called iCognative technology, developed and ready to be used. iCognative technology provides a scientific solution to the fundamental problem in counterterrorism: differentiating between terrorists and innocents, before the terrorists’ strike. Only with iCognative technology delivered by Brainwave Sciencenational security and counterterrorismagencies would be provided with an objective, scientific technology to distinguish between terrorists and innocents by detecting the information stored in a terrorist’s brain.

In the case of two American citizens suspected of having joined ISIS, iCognative technology test can be conducted on both individuals as it is non-invasive and supports human rights. Torture free iCognativetest is conducted in less than an hour using a wireless Bluetooth headset that detects change in electrical activity in the brains of the subject at the sight of words, phrases, sounds or pictures presented on a monitor by automated software in iCognative system. iCognative can easily detect terrorist knowledge and threats—even being able to detect if a suspect has been in a sleeper cell. This can be accomplished by searching for knowledge of bomb and IED making and terrorist training. This technology is specifically designed to avoid all pitfalls of current investigation technologies that fail to detect plans and specific training received by a terrorist supporter and a sympathizer. By using the brain as the sole subject of the analysis, the common errors or false positives and false negatives are by default absent.

iCognative, by design, emphasizes the importance of threat prevention, threat detection, and threat deterrence. In most cases when a terrorism suspect is detained for questioning, he/she is professionally trained to conceal critical information affiliated with his/her networks. A considerable amount of time and resources are allocated for informants and investigators to commit and pursue one lead amid hundreds and thousands of others. Leads are easily dropped when there is insufficient evidence collected in a given time frame. iCognativeis designed to eliminate these critical missed opportunities.

In counter-terrorism, there is no comparable technology available that can help catch terrorists throughout the world.iCognative can identify active or inactive terrorists before and after any terrorist act happens.